My laptop has just died, and I am thinking of getting a Chromebook to replace it, as I refuse to pay Windows tax. I hear that it is possible to install Linux on them with some hacking, dual booting with Chrome, and that there is even a distro aimed at it - Chrubuntu (based on everyone's favourite distro with a xfce GUI). There does not seem to be a website for Chrubuntu however.

Has anyone any experience of getting Linux onto a Chromebook? (The HP 14" Pavillion looks good).

Sad that many of the customer reviews for Chromebooks are mostly along the lines :-

When I got it home I couldn't believe it - No Windows!!! How can anyone use it, it doesn't even have Office!!! #@*%ing USELESS!!!!! Zero out of ten !!

I despair.

Unsolved mysteries of the Universe, No 13 :-
How many remakes of Anna Karenina does the World need?

Nuke wrote:My laptop has just died, and I am thinking of getting a Chromebook to replace it, as I refuse to pay Windows tax. I hear that it is possible to install Linux on them with some hacking, dual booting with Chrome, and that there is even a distro aimed at it - Chrubuntu (based on everyone's favourite distro with a xfce GUI). There does not seem to be a website for Chrubuntu however.

ChromeOS is Linux right? Google's version of Linux I thought? Why would you want to run a version of Linux that had not been designed for the hardware in a Chromebook / Chromepad / Chromebox etc? I'm getting The HP 14'' Chromebook for our lass for her birthday. I'm looking forward to playing with it, before I give it to her. You know setting it all up propper like!

Maybe you'd have to but an external USB harddrive though if you wanted to install Linux though?

Alex01UK wrote:ChromeOS is Linux right? Google's version of Linux I thought? Why would you want to run a version of Linux that had not been designed for the hardware in a Chromebook / Chromepad / Chromebox etc?

You are quite right, and I am aware that ChromeOS is a version of Linux; my post was a bit sloppily written in that respect. However, I understand that ChromeOS is a very locked down and customised version (I'd hardly call it a "distro") geared to using Google's cloud services. I want a general purpose distro, which I understand Chrubuntu is, and clearly it is designed for Chromebook hardware (it's written by a Google engineer).

Unsolved mysteries of the Universe, No 13 :-
How many remakes of Anna Karenina does the World need?